This blog is all about my first book.

December 30, 2006

Confidence - Learning to Trust

Click the play button to listen to this lesson.

If you planted an acorn in the ground today, how big would your oak tree be tomorrow? If you went out and didn't see the oak tree, would you dig up the acorn and take a look at it to see if it had done anything? And if the acorn hadn't changed, would you assume that the acorn must be broken, throw it away, grab another one and plant it?

Would you then go out the next day and see how big your oak tree was? And if nothing had happened, would you again dig up the acorn, see that nothing had happened, assume that it was broken, throw it away and plant yet another acorn?

You're probably thinking, "No, I wouldn't do that. That's pretty ridiculous because everybody knows that it takes a long time for an oak tree to grow." Right, we all know that. But, for some reason, when it comes to our faith we have a very different response.

We tend to assume that having faith means that things happen for us immediately. We forget that having faith is really all about planting seeds. When we pray our prayer "seeds" are planted and we need to have patience in order for them to grow. Just because we don't see rapid changes doesn't mean that nothing is happening, it's broken, and we should throw it away, and go try something else.

Last week I talked about having to go to a lawyer because our second son was born three months premature and we were facing a hospital bill that could have gone as high as $300,00 with no health insurance. When I felt that God was going to help us overcome the problem and pay the bill, my hope was that it would be taken care of immediately. I really didn't want to have to wait because everyday that the bill went unpaid raised more and more concerns. My faith wavered and faltered for months as we went through the process of finding another lawyer, taking depositions, and waiting to see if we would have to go to court.

There are many times when we pray for something, when we feel that we need God to answer us or else, and nothing seems to happen. We often look at our prayers like the acorn. We assume that they must be broken, throw them away, and keep trying new things. So what's the result? The result is that we get frustrated, discouraged, and begin to think that God doesn't love us. But the truth is that God does love us. His love never fails....

The problem isn't God, it's us.

We often lack the patience to wait for our prayer "seeds" to take root, grow, and bear fruit. Have you ever felt like God is ignoring your prayers? Or that perhaps there was something wrong with you because your prayers seemed to be unanswered? The first chapter of James tells us that God wants us to add patience to our faith. The result will be that we will be mature and lack nothing. If we have lack in our lives, there's a good chance that we still need to add patience to our faith. But having patience doesn't mean becoming passive.

If a farmer planted his seeds in the spring he would realize that it wasn't just a matter of sitting on his front porch all summer and waiting for the harvest in fall. He knows that he will have to work all summer to make sure that the seeds got enough water and fertilizer, and that as the plants began to grow, they would need to be protected from weeds and insects. It's a lot like that when we pray.

Starting in verse five of Luke 11 Jesus tells a parable about a man who goes to a friend of his at midnight. He has gone to his friend to ask for bread because a guest has arrived unexpectedly and he doesn't have any food. The friend refuses to get out of bed, but the man continues to knock on the door and ask for the bread. In verse 8 Jesus says, "I say to you, though he will not rise and give to him because he is his friend, yet because of his persistence he will rise and give him as many as he needs."

As we continue to read in Luke 11, we come to verses 9-10 where Jesus says, "So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened."

Jesus is telling us that even if it seems like God isn't answering our prayers, we need to be persistent and patient. If we continue to trust in God He will answer.

When it comes to our faith we can learn a lot from farmers. Like a farmer who plants and tends to his crop until it's harvested, we should continue in prayer and patient expectation, knowing that our prayers will be answered. As we do that our patience and our faith will become strong and unshakable and we will no longer lack anything.